{"id":73991,"date":"2025-07-10T12:04:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T19:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=73991"},"modified":"2025-07-10T12:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T19:04:11","slug":"veterans-condemn-military-deployment-in-l-a-ice-raids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=73991","title":{"rendered":"Veterans Condemn Military Deployment in L.A. ICE Raids"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Christopher Alam<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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President Trump\u2019s deployment of federal troops to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in L.A. has sparked outcry from many veterans nationwide.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Marines enter LA’s MacArthur Park July 7. (Screenshot)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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President Trump\u2019s deployment of federal troops to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in L.A. has sparked outcry from many veterans nationwide.<\/p>\n

Since June, when the Trump administration escalated ICE raids in America\u2019s second-largest city, over 4,000 National Guard members and at least 700 Marines have been deployed to round up at least 1,600 people throughout LA County, against the request of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.<\/p>\n

As of July<\/a>, about 150 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines are being sent home from L.A., with 400 Marines being sent in to replace them.<\/p>\n

Dan Mauer, an associate law professor and retired lieutenant colonel in the Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps, the legal branch of the military, said, \u201cOur founding fathers did not view illegal immigration as a national security issue, let alone an invasion, nor did they view public protests as a form of rebellion. Yet the administration has characterized the tensions in California, Texas and other places in those very stark warlike terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it is \u201cvery likely\u201d that much of what the military is being ordered to do violates the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that bars the use of the federal military to enforce domestic policies within the US, including immigration law.<\/p>\n

Against Newsom\u2019s opposition, Trump invoked Title 10 to federalize California\u2019s National Guard, marking the first such move without a governor\u2019s consent since the 1960s; the statute lets the president call the National Guard into federal service under limited circumstances, including when there is a \u201crebellion or danger of a rebellion\u201d or when the president is unable \u201cto execute the laws of the United States\u201d with regular forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe closer the military acts like a police force, the closer they act to providing security around a perimeter or around a raid site, to detaining individuals, to questioning individuals that are suspected of being illegal immigrants, the closer the military is pushed to that Posse Comitatus line. And that is a very dangerous place to be,\u201d said Mauer, who teaches at the JAG school and formerly taught constitutional and criminal law at West Point.<\/p>\n

He added that the training the military undergoes for combat deployment is unsuitable for civilian law enforcement, as the laws of war do not concern the constitutional rights or due process of enemy soldiers.<\/p>\n

Considering how rapidly the troops were mobilized to LA, Mauer expressed skepticism as to whether the soldiers were properly trained, noting Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth\u2019s\u00a0view<\/a>\u00a0of JAG officers, who advise commanders in combat, as too restrictive on rules of engagement.<\/p>\n

Last February, Hegseth fired and moved to replace the top lawyers for military services including the Army, Navy and Air Force.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>The administration has unnecessarily and provocatively deployed the military in a way that reflects the very fears that our Founding Fathers had about using the military as a police force,\u201d said Mauer.<\/p>\n

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This is footage from today in MacArthur Park.<\/p>\n

Minutes before, there were more than 20 kids playing \u2014 then, the MILITARY comes through.<\/p>\n

The SECOND I heard about this, I went to the park to speak to the person in charge to tell them it needed to end NOW.<\/p>\n

Absolutely outrageous.\u00a0pic.twitter.com\/sxGzjGlYlr<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA)\u00a0July 7, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cThat is the concern shared by many law professors,\u201d he continued. \u201cPeople from my background who were former JAGs, who are now teaching in the academy, have a fairly deep and widespread concern about the legality of what\u2019s going on \u2014 not just the big picture, but also what rules are binding the troops\u2019 use of force, if and when they have to use force against their fellow citizens, or people who are not citizens, who nonetheless have constitutional rights when they\u2019re within our borders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although U.S. veterans generally tend to be affiliated with the Republican party, supporting Trump by\u00a061%<\/a>\u00a0in the last election, this condemnation comes amid a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)-led plan for large-scale layoffs from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).<\/p>\n

While the original plan was for 83,000 job cuts, a 17% workforce reduction, the VA has since scaled back its plans, now aiming to cut 30,000 jobs by the end of September.<\/p>\n

Joe Penzler, a member of the board of the Unite for Veterans Coalition and a Marine combat veteran who was once part of the 2nd Battalion 7th Marines \u2014 the unit deployed to Los Angeles \u2014\u00a0 said \u201cMarines are our nation\u2019s shock troops, and it\u2019s entirely inappropriate that they\u2019re deployed to the streets of Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a mission that they are trained to do. It\u2019s not a mission they want to do,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t know a single Marine worth their salt in my 20 years, if you were to tell them, \u2018Hey, we want you to come on board and pair up with these masked goons to rip apart immigrant families and deport and detain them,\u2019 how many of them would actually put their hands in the air to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Penzler said that when he was part of the unit, most of the Marines came from Texas and California, and over half came from Spanish-speaking families, with some on green cards seeking U.S. citizenship.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>So think about what might be going through their heads right now as they\u2019re being ordered to help ICE arrest and deport hardworking people who look a lot like people they would see at their own family reunions,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

Echoing Mauer\u2019s concern that Marines are not trained in the de-escalatory tactics needed to conduct nonviolent civil law enforcement, Penzler said that when Marines were employed as cops in Iraq and Afghanistan, \u201cbad things happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>We saw that when Marines were deployed to L.A. during the riots following Rodney King, where L.A. police officers told a squad of Marines to cover them as they were moving up to a house, and the Marines thinking \u2018cover us\u2019 meant \u2018open fire on the house,\u2019 which is what they did,\u201d he explained.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

He noted other fatal instances of soldiers used in civil law enforcement, including the Ohio National Guard killing 4 protestors at Kent State University in 1970, and the violent suppression of the Bonus Army protestors in 1932 which saw 2 WWI veterans killed and contributed to Herbert Hoover\u2019s landslide loss in that year\u2019s presidential election.<\/p>\n

Penzler said he worried that domestic deployment sets a precedent for future administrations to use the military for political gain, suppressing dissent and violating First and Fourth Amendment rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery second they\u2019re standing around some federal building in Los Angeles or hanging out with ICE agencies or rounding up people is time taken away from what they\u2019re really trained to do,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Christopher Purdy, founder and CEO of The Chamberlain Network, a civil service organization for veterans, referred to Trump\u2019s L.A. orders as a \u201cpolitical stunt, an intentionally provocative act designed to grab headlines and incite a response from the local population, not to solve any actual problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Purdy, who served in the U.S. Army National Guard from 2004 to 2012 and was deployed to Iraq in 2011, agreed with Mauer and Penzler that federal military personnel lack the proper civilian training for this assignment.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuard units doing these missions are often doing them with minimal preparation,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhile many guard units may get a single civil unrest training block a year, many are now entering into 287(g) agreements with DHS,\u201d letting state and local law enforcement agencies collaborate with ICE to enforce federal immigration laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe training for those missions has been cut down to an online course,\u201d he added. No hands-on experience, no serious field prep with anyone from DHS, just a week in front of a laptop, and they\u2019re out there supporting these raids.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByChristopher Alam Jul 9, 2025 President...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73992,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73991\/revisions\/73992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}